No.26
Edith Piaf, Roger McGough, Bette Midler, Jacques Brel, Dylan Thomas, William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Robert Burns, Spike Middleton, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Maya Angelou, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Bishop, Shel Silverstein, Walter de la Mare, Eleanor Farjeon, etc.

Let Me Die A Youngman's Death

Roger McGough

Let me die a youngman's death 

not a clean and inbetween 

the sheets holywater death 

not a famous-last-words 

peaceful out of breath death 

When I'm 73 

and in constant good tumour 

may I be mown down at dawn 

by a bright red sports car 

on my way home 

from an allnight party 

Or when I'm 91 

with silver hair 

and sitting in a barber's chair 

may rival gangsters 

with hamfisted tommyguns burst in 

and give me a short back and insides 

Or when I'm 104 

and banned from the Cavern 

may my mistress 

catching me in bed with her daughter 

and fearing for her son 

cut me up into little pieces 

and throw away every piece but one 

Let me die a youngman's death 

not a free from sin tiptoe in 

candle wax and waning death 

not a curtains drawn by angels borne 

'what a nice way to go' death

-o0o-